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Friday, June 15, 2018

Cameroon Families Search for Repatriated Migrants

FILE - Cameroonian migrants
receive registration forms upon their arrival after spending several
months in Libya, at the Yaounde International Airport in Cameroon, Nov.r
22, 2017.

By Moki Kindzeka

YAOUNDE — Families are in search of loved ones among the more than 2,000
Cameroonian migrants who were rescued in Libya and brought back to the
central African state by the International Organization for Migration.

More than 100 Cameroonians cheered and sang the central African
country's national anthem upon arrival at the Yaounde-Nsimalen
international airport from Libya this week as they were met by family
members, curious onlookers and government authorities.

Children were among the returnees, said social worker Prisca Ndemaya.

"I have a case of two children, aged between six months and two years
old. Their mothers were shot in Libya, and so these children were lucky
to come back home safely. After all the preliminary health examinations
done on the children, we are going to secure the children at the center
for distress children," she said.

Olive Mboze, a 32-year-old breastfeeding mother, also arrived in
Yaounde. She says her husband stayed behind in Algeria, where they had
flown from Cameroon with the hope of finding a way to Italy. She
discovered she was one month pregnant when she got to the Libyan city of
Bayda, so she worked as a housekeeper and reported herself to the
police when the pregnancy reached seven months. She says she was charged
with illegal immigration and taken to a prison in Bayda, where she
delivered her child.

FILE - A Cameroonian nurse gives an injection to a
girl arriving with her familly after spending several months in Libya,
at the Yaounde International Airport in Cameroon, Nov. 22, 2017.

Some women who delivered had neither sanitary papers for themselves
nor napkins for their babies, Mboze said, and had to cut their dresses
into pieces to clean themselves and their newborn babies.

The migrants looked exhausted. They told stories of torture and
murder, and said some people went missing and others were trapped in the
desert or at sea.

The International Organization for Migration gives $150 to each of
the migrants who return to buy food and gifts for their families.

A year ago, brothers Henri and Pierre Bekolge returned from Libya and
opened a poultry farm in Ahala, on the outskirts of Cameroon's capital,
Yaounde, benefiting from $4,000 given to them by the Cameroon
government to socially integrate returning migrants.

FILE - A Cameroonian police officer registers the
arrival from Libya of a Cameroonian woman and her son at the Yaounde
International Airport in Cameroon, Nov. 22, 2017.

Pierre says his brother, Henri, sold the first chickens and a portion of
land they inherited from their parents and left again for Europe
through north Africa. Pierre says he is also determined to go to Europe,
and is working hard to raise funds to leave Cameroon.

He says he was unlucky when he arrived in Libya a year ago, and fell
in the hands of people who duped him and took his money. Some of his
friends, however, say they have found success in Europe and tell him
their living conditions have improved. He says he has seen so many
people who braved the difficulties, traveled to Europe are now investing
back at home, unlike his friends who graduated from university,
remained in Cameroon and now share rooms, food and clothing with their
family members because they do not have jobs.

Pierre refused to say when he would leave, but said it was imminent.
He said he cannot remain in the poultry business because he is a law
graduate from the University of Yaounde.

Cameroon says families are in search of scores of relatives who have
again left the country. Officials say they have been warning citizens
about the dangers of irregular travel to Europe and are encouraging
Cameroonians to obtain official travel documents and visas.

Cameroon estimates 120,000 of its citizens are illegal migrants, with
most trapped by trafficking rings, or held in Libyan prisons or Italian
refugee camps.